


The Fox and the Phil

by transdimensional_void



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Fluff, Kitsune, Kitsune!Dan, M/M, Meat-eating, Mentions of Sex, Slight Danger, Spooky, Student!Phil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 23:37:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5109671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transdimensional_void/pseuds/transdimensional_void
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil meets a mysterious boy at a club who just wants to know what he tastes like… (kitsune!Dan and uni student!Phil AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fox and the Phil

Phil really didn’t want to be at the club tonight.

 

It was five days to Halloween, and his costume was only half ready. He’d meant to spend this frozen Friday evening putting the finishing touches on it, but just as he’d sat down on the floor of his bedroom and pulled out his supplies, one of his housemates had burst through the door and all but dragged him out by the arm.

 

“I don’t really feel like—“ he’d tried to say, but Michael was having none of it.

 

“No way you’re sitting on your floor on a Friday night while all the rest of us are at the club,” he stated firmly, refusing to relinquish his grasp on Phil’s arm. “When was the last time you even got laid?”

 

Phil blushed.

 

“That’s not really any of your—“

 

“Mm-hmm,” Michael replied.

 

“Come on, Phil,” chimed in another of his housemates, Elinor, who was already stood by the front doorway dressed in her clubbing outfit. “You haven’t been out with us in _ages_.”

 

“It’s been, like, a week—“

 

“ _Three_ weeks, Phil,” said his third housemate, Stephen, and Phil frowned. He thought back over the past few weeks. Well, there had been midterm exams, of course, and then that huge project for his advanced linguistics class, and of course he’d been trying to work on his costume…

 

“Fine,” Phil muttered when he’d counted up the days and realized it _had_ been a full three weeks since he’d been out on a weekend. “But I’m not bringing anyone home or anything.”

 

Michael just snorted, and Elinor and Stephen exchanged a significant glance. He’d had a pretty serious girlfriend up until a few months ago, and when things with her had ended, his friends had been consoling. But now, it seemed, their supply of sympathy had run out, and they’d all decided that he needed to get back on the proverbial horse. He swallowed hard, suddenly feeling nervous. Were they up to something?

 

Now here they were queueing out front of a club, and the line was being held up by someone ahead of them arguing with the bouncer. Without even noticing he’d done so, Phil had crossed his arms over his chest and was tapping an impatient foot on the ground. He just wanted to get this over with.

 

“What could be taking so long?” Elinor muttered, and Phil leaned out of the queue to try to get a glimpse of what was happening up ahead. He saw the bouncer, tall and beefy-armed, glowering down at someone only a bit shorter who had brown hair and a very young face. The kid couldn’t be older than fifteen, maybe sixteen. Phil gave a short laugh and shook his head.

 

“Looks like some underage kid’s trying to get in,” he said, turning back to his friends.

 

“God,” Stephen groaned, and Michael rolled his eyes. 

 

Phil was on the verge of seizing the opportunity to suggest they try somewhere else, somewhere quieter perhaps, like a pub where they could just have dinner and a drink and then head home, when at last the kid lost his argument with the bouncer and was pushed none-too-gently out of the way by the next people in line. As Phil and his friends finally made it up to the door, he caught a glimpse of the kid disappearing around the nearby street corner, shoulders slumped and chin against his chest.

 

Once they were inside, Elinor and Stephen went off to find them a table, while he and Michael were sent up to the bar for everyone’s drink orders. The club had put up a few cobwebs and jack-o-lanterns in recognition of the spooky season, and the sight of them improved Phil’s mood a bit. Maybe coming here hadn’t been such a bad idea.

 

A few cocktails later, Phil was actually having a great time, and he’d even gotten out onto the dance floor for a few songs. Why had he been so against coming anyway? Back at the table again, the drinking games began, and Michael ended up having to down most of a pitcher of beer when he forgot to take the invisible little man off the top of his beer mug before taking a swig.

 

While it was satisfying seeing Michael be on the losing end of a drinking game for once — Phil had lost count of the number of times he’d had to listen to Michael chanting “Drink! Drink! Drink!” in his ear — the downside of it was that Phil ended up being the one chosen to go up to the bar to order the next round.

 

The club was packed tonight — even though it was only October, it was already far too cold to be doing anything out of doors on a Friday evening — and Phil had to dodge elbows and drunken dancers and at least one person attempting to squeeze his arse as he wended his way up to the bar.

 

And then, of course, once he was there, he had to compete for the bar tenders’ attention with about a million other people, and it seemed that no matter how much he waved and called out, they were all bent on ignoring him.

 

“Excuse me,” someone shouted over the music from very nearby, and Phil whipped his head around with an impatient sound. Couldn’t they see that he was busy at the moment?

 

“Yes?” he said, and then he spotted the person who was talking to him. It was the kid he’d seen outside earlier. He started at the sight of the kid’s chubby cheeks and wide, innocent eyes. “How the hell did you get in here?”

 

The kid’s lower lip jutted out in a frown.

 

“That’s none of your business,” he snapped, but then as he peered more closely at Phil, his expression transformed into a bright smile, and he said, “You’re really pretty.”

 

Phil raised an eyebrow. Was this child really hitting on him?

 

“I’m not buying you alcohol, if that’s what you want,” Phil intoned, starting to turn away again.

 

“No, wait,” and then Phil felt a warm hand on his arm. “Don’t go.”

 

Phil looked down at the kid’s hand then up into his cherubic face again. He had very dark eyes, though it was impossible to tell their color in the dim lighting of the club. As Phil watched, the eyes closed, and the kid’s sharp little nose rose in the air, almost as though he had sniffed out an appetizing scent.

 

His eyes popped open again.

 

“You smell delicious,” the kid grinned, sliding his tongue over his lips. His eyes took on a strange gleam. “I’d love to find out what you taste like.”

 

Phil was glad then for the darkness of the club, because he was pretty sure he must be blushing.

 

“Oh my god,” he choked. “How old are you even? You can’t say things like that!”

 

“I can say anything I want,” the kid returned, his grip on Phil’s arm tightening.

 

Phil snorted. Okay. This had gone on long enough. This boy was clearly in over his head, and Phil hated to think what might happen to him wandering around a club packed with drunk university students and propositioning people half a decade older than he was.

 

“What’s your name?” Phil asked, shaking the boy’s hand off and then taking hold of both his shoulders to make sure he couldn’t run off.

 

“I’m ki—“ the boy started and then bit his tongue. His eyes shot around the room before coming to rest on a television screen hanging above the bar where a pre-recorded rugby match was playing. The image was a close-up of a player’s face with the name “Dan H.” written across the bottom of the screen. The kid’s expression brightened. “Um, it’s Dan! Dan Hhhhh…..Howl! Dan Howl.”

 

“Dan Howell?” Phil repeated, raising both eyebrows. “All right, ‘ _Dan Howell_ ,’ you’re coming with me.”

 

The kid’s eyes went round with surprise, and then his mouth widened in a toothy grin.

 

“Really?” he exclaimed.

 

Phil just shook his head and, taking the kid by one wrist, started pulling him through the crowd. As they neared the exit, where it was quieter and less crowded, Phil turned to him and asked,

 

“Do you have enough money for bus fare?”

 

“What?” He cocked his head to one side, looking strangely reminiscent of a curious puppy. “Oh, right! Money! Yes.” And he shoved one hand in his pocket, digging around until he at last came up with a fistful of paper. “Yes, I have many…um, pounds. See!”

 

Phil glanced down at the boy’s hand. He couldn’t see what the boy was holding very well, but even in this dim light he knew the bills didn’t look quite right. If he had to guess, he’d say they were nothing more than bits of colored paper. What the hell? He looked back up at the kid, who was grinning at him with all his teeth again, and, Phil thought, looking well pleased with himself.

 

Phil sighed and rolled his eyes.

 

“I’ll give you bus fare,” he muttered. “Come on.” And he pulled the kid through the door and out into the chilly night.

 

“Hey!” — that was the bouncer — “I thought I told you to get lost, you little punk!”

 

Phil looked up to see the musclebound man bearing down on them with an angry expression on his face.

 

“Think you can sneak into my club?” the man was yelling. “Think you’re hot stuff? Well what do you think about spending the night in a jail cell?”

 

Phil glanced over at the boy, who was looking sheepish but not particularly frightened. Phil, on the other hand, felt his knees wobbling a bit at the sight of the man’s reddening face.

 

“Um, it’s okay, Sir. He was only inside for a few minutes. I’m just taking him down to the bus stop—“

 

The man halted his progress and gave Phil a quick up and down. His eyes narrowed.

 

“Oh, are you now?”

 

Phil could feel himself wilting internally. Great. Just great. The man thought he was some kind of pedophile now. He could never show his face at this club again.

 

“Yeah, um, he didn’t look like he belonged in there, so—“

 

Suddenly, the boy started wriggling around in his grasp, almost as though he were trying to get free, except that Phil wasn’t holding him all that tightly, and he was pretty sure that if he really wanted to shake Phil off he could have done it quite easily. He glanced over to see the boy glaring at him.

 

“I don’t want to go home! I want to stay and drink alcohol!” he cried. Then he turned pleading eyes on the bouncer, “Mister, please don’t make me go home.”

 

The bouncer had turned his glare back to the boy now, and Phil would have felt relieved if the boy’s behavior hadn’t been so suspicious.

 

“Get the fuck away from my club before I call the police,” the man grumbled, raising a menacing fist at them before turning back to his post.

 

Phil didn’t waste a moment in dragging the kid away, down the street and toward the nearest bus stop. When they were a few feet away, he heard the boy make a sound that was half-laugh, half-bark.

 

“Pretty good, wasn’t I?” he crowed.

 

Phil rolled his eyes again.

 

“How far away do you live? Do you know which line to take?” he asked, craning his neck and hoping that he would see a bus coming around the corner. He didn’t.

 

There was a long pause, and finally he looked back at the kid to discover he was gazing up at Phil with a smirk on his lips and that strange glint back in his eyes. If he wasn’t literally a child, Phil might have almost felt creeped out by that look.

 

“I thought we could go back to your place,” the kid purred at him. A pale glimmer caught Phil’s eye, and he noticed for the first time that the kid was wearing earrings: two large, pure white pearls.

 

“ _We’re_ not going anywhere,” Phil said, continuing to pull the kid on up the road. “ _You’re_ going home, and _I’m_ going back to the club where my friends are probably wondering what in the world’s become of me.”

 

The kid was silent for a moment, and then Phil heard him make that strange barking laugh again.

 

“Oh, really?” he said, and then all at once, Phil felt a painful grip on his arm and an irresistible strength dragging him away from the street and into a dark alleyway they’d just passed. Before he could even register what was happening, he found himself lying on his back on the gravelly pavement with a slender, shadowy form bent over him. He heard a long intake of breath, but it was so dark down here, away from the street lights, that all he could see was the faint glimmer of two shining eyes.

 

“What the—“

 

“Mmmm, you do smell wonderful,” a voice growled. Was that…the boy? It sounded like his voice, but rougher, almost animal-like. Phil tried to move but found he was being held down by two hands clamping his arms to his sides and sharp knees digging into his thighs. “I wonder what I should eat first? Your liver? Your lungs? Your heart?”

 

“Eat my…what?” Phil breathed, his voice faint with fear. 

 

“Or maybe I should start smaller,” the other continued. “Perhaps your spleen as an appetizer? And save your brain for dessert!”

 

Phil swallowed hard. His stomach was roiling and it felt like his heart was pounding in his mouth.

 

“P-p-please don’t eat me. Please,” he managed, his voice barely a whisper.

 

“Why not?” 

 

As he spoke, the boy leaned back just enough that a stray beam from a far away street lamp faintly illuminated his face, and Phil could at last see that he no longer looked like a baby-faced young teen. Instead, his nose and chin had sharpened, and in his mouth the light glinted off two long fangs. Phil froze. What in the world could be happening?

 

“Why shouldn’t I eat you?” the boy repeated his question. “I’m sure you’ll be delicious!”

 

“B-b-because I’ll die?” Phil stammered. He felt something soft brush against his ankles, and then he caught sight of it, rising up behind the boy’s back: a tail, long and bushy.

 

“You’ll…die?” The boy cocked his head to one side again, and Phil couldn’t help thinking again of a dog, or maybe a wolf… Oh god. This had to be some kind of strangely vivid dream. He must’ve fallen asleep in the middle of working on his costume. Or maybe he was passed out drunk on the table back in the club. That was it. He was swearing off alcohol for good. _Wake up, wake up, wake up_.

 

“Yeah, I mean, those are all vital organs…except for maybe my spleen… I’d die without them,” Phil explained, wishing he could move his hand enough to pinch his arm and wake himself from this nightmare. “Though I guess I’d probably die of blood loss first,” he added.

 

“Oh,” the boy said, his lips drooping closed over his fangs. Phil thought he could even see tears forming at the corners of his eyes. “I…I didn’t know.”

 

Now that it seemed that he was no longer in imminent danger of ending up in this creature’s stomach, Phil found that his curiosity had begun to overtake his fear.

 

“So, are you, like, a werewolf or something?” he asked. His legs were starting to tingle from the lack of circulation, and he hoped that the boy would get off of them soon.

 

“No,” the boy huffed in response. “Do I smell like a _dog_ to you?”

 

“Um, you don’t really smell like anything?” Phil said. “Do you think you could let me up now?”

 

The boy shook his head, his shaggy hair rustling from side to side, and Phil noticed for the first time that the ears sticking out from amongst the brown locks had turned all pointy and furry.

 

“You’ll run away, and then what will I do for dinner?” the boy said.

 

“Well,” Phil started, trying to flex his leg muscles enough to get some blood flowing again. “maybe you could just skip dinner this evening?”

 

An eerie, keening noise split the air then, and if Phil hadn’t still been pinned to the ground he would’ve jumped half out of his skin. After a moment he realized the noise had originated in the back of the boy’s throat.

 

“But I’m SOOO HUNGRYYYY,” the boy cried, tipping his head back and letting the final vowel sound stretch out into a sort of high-pitched howl. Phil could definitely see shining tear tracks down his cheeks now.

 

“It’s been ten years since my last meal,” he continued in a softer whine, “Because all you stupid humans refuse to let me eat you.”

 

The boy looked so pitiful that Phil almost began to feel sorry for him. Almost. He was on the verge of pointing out that he might be a more successful hunter if he stopped taking his prey’s opinion into consideration, but then he thought better of it.

 

“Maybe, um, maybe I could buy you dinner instead?” Phil suggested. He had no idea what— whatever creature the boy was— ate, but if it was meat he wanted, Phil knew of a 24-hour supermarket that probably had some on sale this late in the evening…

 

The boy stopped his whining and dropped his head down to stare at Phil again.

 

“You could _buy_ me a liver?” he asked, sounding dubious.

 

Phil bit his lip.

 

“Well, not a human one, but…yeah, we could probably buy some liver.”

 

Phil heard a few more sniffles, and then suddenly the weight holding him down disappeared. Phil scrambled to his feet at once, teetering a bit on his half-numbed legs. His first thought was to run for it, back onto the street where there were light and people, but he remembered how fast and strong this creature was. And besides, this was just a dream…right? No harm in seeing how this all played out.

 

“Where can we buy the liver?” came the boy’s voice, small and trembling in the darkness.

 

Phil almost smiled. Now that he wasn’t being pinned down and threatened with being eaten, he could let himself feel some sympathy for this kid.

 

“This way,” Phil said, turning back toward the entrance of the alleyway. He heard shoes scuffing on gravel behind him and knew that the boy was following. He didn’t turn to look at him again until they were back out in the bright glare of the street lights. He was disappointed to find that the tail and fangs had disappeared, and the boy’s ears and face were back to looking normal…and very young.

 

“Um, so how old are you anyway?” he asked after they’d walked the last few feet to the bus stop. The street was still deserted. With annoyance, he realized that they’d probably missed one, if not two, buses during their little interlude in the alleyway.

 

“Sixty-two,” the boy mumbled, staring down toward the toes of his shoes.

 

Phil’s mouth actually dropped open. But, no…that was just the sort of weird thing his sleeping brain would have come up with. He let out a nervous chuckle.

 

“Well, you don’t look it,” he said.

 

The boy’s eyes rose a bit and met Phil’s, and in the yellow glow of the street lamps, he could finally see that they were a nice, clear brown color. 

 

“Should I try to look it?” he asked. Before Phil could respond, the boy’s face suddenly began to change, his skin folding up into wrinkles, his eyebrows turning white and bushy and his floppy fringe bleaching to a pale silver. Within a few seconds, he’d turned from a baby-faced boy to a wizened elder. “Is this better?” he wheezed in a creaky, old voice.

 

“Whoa,” Phil muttered. “What _are_ you?”

 

“I’m a _kitsune_ ,” the old man croaked. When Phil just blinked at him in confusion, he continued, “A _kumiho_? _Huxian_? Oh, confound it, what’s it you people call it over here…? A f…fock… Fox demon? That’s it! A fox demon.”

 

“A…fox…demon?” Phil repeated, bewildered. “Like in _Naruto_?”

 

The old man scowled at him, an expression that on his ancient face looked truly sinister.

 

“That stupid show. Why is everyone always so obsessed with the _nine-tailed_ fox demons?” He stuck out his lower lip, all of a sudden looking very much like his former, baby-faced self. “What’s so great about having extra tails anyway?” he grumbled.

 

“Doesn’t it mean that you’re older and more powerful?” Phil asked, then regretted it when the old man’s eyes suddenly flared a murderous red.

 

“I know what it means!” he hissed. Suddenly, his skin smoothed out again and his hair grew dark, long, and wavy, and then, to Phil’s utter astonishment, he sprouted breasts beneath his jumper. He offered Phil a self-satisfied grin and waved his hands towards his newly-protuberant chest. “Eh, eh? Look at this? How’s that for power, huh?”

 

“That’s, um, very impressive,” Phil said, hoping that it was okay that he was staring at the boy’s boobs. They looked like very nice boobs, but that wasn’t really why he couldn’t tear his eyes away from them. They’d just…popped up. Out of nowhere…

 

“Do you like them?” the boy purred, his voice going higher. Phil glanced up at his face to see that he was batting long, dark eyelashes. “I hear this is what men prefer me to look like.”

 

“Oh, I, uh…” Phil hemmed, glancing over to the street and really wishing the bus would come, “I don’t really have a preference.”

 

The boy’s shoulders slumped. His hair grew short again, and his boobs seemed to dissolve into thin air. His shoulders rose and fell in a massive, angst-ridden sigh.

 

“No one ever likes my breasts,” he said, and Phil could hear tears in his voice again. “I can’t seduce anyone. I can’t hunt properly. I can’t even figure out how to fake your country’s silly money.” Two big, fat tears slipped from the inner corners of his eyes and spilled down his cheeks. He sniffed loudly. “I’m the worst _kitsune_ ever.”

 

“Aw, there, there,” Phil murmured, reaching out a hand and patting the boy on the shoulder. “I’m sure you could have seduced me just fine if you hadn’t made yourself look like an actual baby.”

 

The boy looked up at him, lashes dark and sparkling with his tears and forehead wrinkled up in consternation.

 

“I look like a baby?” he moaned.

 

“Well, no, that’s a figure of speech,” Phil backtracked, biting his lip and wondering if the damn bus was ever going to come. “I just meant that you made yourself look way too young to be able to pick up anyone in that club.”

 

“How old should I look?” the boy asked, and he did that thing again, where he jerked his head to one side, and finally Phil could see that it made him look exactly like a red fox when it’s just caught sight of something rustling in the grass.

 

“Um, maybe a few years older? Like, four or five years older, at least?”

 

“Like this?” the boy said, and right before Phil’s eyes, the baby fat melted from his cheeks, his chin grew just a bit more square, his shoulders broadened, and he gained several inches in height. Phil blinked. Suddenly there was a very attractive twenty-something man standing in front of him.

 

The bus chose that very moment to pull around the corner and squeak to a halt at the bus stop where they stood.

 

“Uh, this is us,” Phil said, tearing his eyes away from the boy…man…fox demon and hopping up through the bus’s open door. He didn’t turn to see whether the demon was following him and instead focused on fishing out his student bus pass and dropping fare for a second passenger into the box next to the driver.

 

The bus was fairly empty, so he chose a pair of seats near the back and felt, rather than saw, the fox demon drop into the seat beside him. He heard sniffing again, and then the demon said,

 

“No one on this bus smells very appetizing.” Phil darted a glance at him and saw that he was wrinkling his nose. “Well, except for you,” the demon amended, with a saucy glance at Phil out of the corner of his eye, and Phil felt a slight heat creeping into his cheeks. Maybe convincing the demon to alter his appearance hadn’t been such a good idea after all.

 

Phil cleared his throat a few times before he dared to respond.

 

“So, um, ahem, what’s your real name?” Phil asked, wanting to redirect the conversation away from his apparent deliciousness. He also needed something to refer to this guy as other than “the demon.”

 

“Oh, I don’t think you could pronounce my real name,” the demon smirked, turning just a bit to look at Phil from the periphery of his vision.

 

“I could try, at least,” Phil shrugged.

 

“Okay,” said the demon, “it’s ki—“ But the sounds that came after that sounded like nothing more than a series of yips and snarls.

 

“Oh,” Phil said. “You’re right. I can’t pronounce that.”

 

“We could just stick to ‘Dan,’” the demon suggested. “I haven’t been in England long, so I need a new name to use here anyway.” He shrugged. “You seemed okay with that one.”

 

“All right, then, Dan Howell it is.”

 

They rode a while further in silence, before the demon, or rather, Dan, nudged him with an elbow and murmured,

 

“So, if it’s not a human liver, what kind is it? Not dog, I hope.” And he wrinkled up his nose again and stuck out his tongue.

 

Phil couldn’t help laughing at that.

 

“No, no, I don’t think anyone around here will try to sell you dog liver. They’ll probably have chicken liver for sale, though.” Phil frowned, trying to think of what might be on offer in the frozen meats section of a grocery store. “Maybe cow or sheep, too, if we’re lucky.”

 

“Oh…” Dan said, nodding slowly, “Well, I’d much prefer to eat yours, but if you are entirely sure you’re against it…” He trailed off, raising one eyebrow at Phil.

 

“I’m emphatically against it,” Phil stated, glaring at the demon out of the corner of one eye.

 

“Okay, okay, then I suppose a cow liver could be good.” He paused, gazing up at the ceiling of the bus with a contemplative air. “To be honest, I’ve never tried to eat a cow before. They’re huge! I, uh, I actually only started to be able to change into human form a few years ago. Back when I was just a little fox, I never dreamed of eating anything as big as a cow!”

 

When they got to the supermarket, though, it turned out there was no cow liver to be found — only steak, ground beef, pork and lamp chops, chicken breasts—

 

“It’s just like humans to keep all the nice organs for themselves and leave all these chewy, tough bits for others,” Dan moaned when it at last became apparent that they weren’t going to find anything better than a tiny chicken liver.

 

“Um,” Phil said, “for humans these actually _are_ the nice bits. That’s why they’re what’s for sale.”

 

Dan gave him a horrified look and then slowly shook his head.

 

“What strange creatures you are,” he observed. “Still, this meat smells all right. I suppose I could try it.”

 

Phil looked to see what he was pointing at and discovered that it was a huge £15 steak. He sighed. The demon would choose the actual most expensive piece of meat for sale in the entire store. _Well, look at it this way_ , he told himself as he picked up the steak and put it in the basket he held over one arm, _at least he’s not eating me._ But maybe that wasn’t the best wording to use, for no sooner had he thought the words than he felt a blush blooming across his cheeks.

 

“Come on,” he muttered and hurried up an aisle before Dan could catch sight of the redness of his face.

 

Just as they were walking out the door of the supermarket, Phil’s phone started going off in his pocket, and he suddenly remembered that he’d completely abandoned his friends at the club. Shoving the paper bag with the steak in it toward Dan, he yanked his phone out of his pocket and, grimacing, saw a picture of Michael’s face staring out at him from it.

 

“Where the fuck are you?” were the first words out of his housemate’s mouth when he answered.

 

“I, uh… I met someone. Heading back home. Don’t wait up!”

 

“You…what?”

 

“Very busy! Gotta go!” Phil said and then hung up at once. Crap. He had panicked. On the one hand, hadn’t he just told his friend exactly what he’d wanted to hear? But on the other hand, he knew, he just _knew_ that he was never going to let him live this down…

 

He heard a strange slurping noise and glanced over to see the demon licking the tip of one finger with a wide, satisfied grin on his face.

 

“Did you finish it already?” Phil demanded, grabbing the bag back to see that it was indeed empty.

 

“It was only a little bit of meat,” the other said with a shrug. “Not nearly as much as a whole human body’s worth…” He was gazing at Phil with a considering look that Phil didn’t like at all.

 

“I should probably be heading home now,” Phil said, backing away ever so slightly.

 

Dan’s expression swiftly changed from satisfied to forlorn.

 

“Oh, okay,” he said, his big, brown eyes going wide and wistful.

 

“Good night, and, uh…” He’d been about to wish him “Good luck,” but then the thought had occurred to him that good luck for Dan would probably mean someone had died. “Well, good night.”

 

“Good night,” Dan replied, biting his plump lower lip and casting his gaze down toward the pavement.

 

Phil wasn’t about to fall for that, no matter how luscious those lips looked or how alluring his eyes. He needed to get as far away from this creature as he possibly could before he ended up being the second course.

 

“Take care,” Phil said, stepping back once, twice, three times…and then spinning around and half-running to the bus stop. He didn’t hear any reply from Dan, though he thought he caught a strange flash of white light out of the corner of one eye. He managed to overcome the temptation to look back and stayed the course all the way to the bus.

 

Once he had safely boarded, he did at last dare to glance back toward the supermarket car park, but he wasn’t too surprised to find it deserted, no trace of the demon anywhere. Already he’d started to think that perhaps this had all been some sort of strange hallucination. No doubt he would wake in the morning and find he’d actually been in bed with a fever all night…

 

Back home, he found the house blessedly quiet. When he slipped into his room, he was greeted by the sight of his Halloween costume spread across the floor. He shuddered. No. Nope. No way was he dressing up as a werewolf. What had he been thinking? Just the sight of the furry ears on the mask and the long, yellowed claws on the gloves creeped him out. He kicked the pieces of the costume under his bed, changed quickly into his pajamas, and then slipped under the warmth of his duvet. The sooner he was asleep, the sooner he could convince himself that none of this had ever happened…

 

**

 

In the morning, Phil woke to find that the air in his bedroom was chillier than ever. This was shaping up to be one of the coldest autumns he’d ever seen. Yet despite the frosty air tickling his nose, his feet felt deliciously warm. Whatever socks he’d put on last night had really done the trick. Still only half awake, he wiggled his toes, basking in the toastiness. But…that was strange. He could only barely move his feet. It felt like… Like there was something sitting on them.

 

With a grumpy grumble, Phil pushed the duvet down from around his ears and sat up just enough to see the end of his bed. The sight that greeted his eyes made his blood run cold.

 

Curled up asleep right on top of his feet was a large red fox, its back rising and falling with its quick breaths.

 

“No,” Phil whispered.

 

One of the fox’s ears twitched.

 

“No way,” Phil said. The fox’s ear twitched again, and then one of its eyes slitted open. When it saw Phil sitting up and looking at it, it lifted its head and opened its mouth, its tongue lolling out in a grin. As Phil stared, it slowly stood, arching its back and stretching out its paws while its mouth opened wide in a yawn. Then it turned toward Phil again, traipsing up the length of the bed until it stood directly in front of him.

 

Then it licked him right across the lips.

 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Phil yelped, reaching up and scrubbing the back of his hand against his violated lips. He could have sworn he saw the fox’s brown eyes twinkle. However, before he could demand any further response from it, there came the sound of voices from the other side of his door, and he realized his yelling must have alerted his housemates that he was awake.

 

“Phil?” came Elinor’s voice from the corridor. Frantic, Phil glanced toward the door and then whipped his head back around to the fox. Then he let out a little scream.

 

Instead of a fox, there was now an extremely attractive brown-haired man sat upon his knees, dressed in nothing but one of Phil’s old t-shirts.

 

“What the—“

 

“Phil? I heard you scream,” Elinor was saying from the other side of the door.

 

“You got someone in there?” That was Michael now, and Phil would have groaned with annoyance if he weren’t trying to figure out what to do with his half-naked uninvited guest.

 

“Get under the covers,” he hissed at Dan, who was watching his face with that curious, canine-like expression.

 

“I thought you’d never ask,” Dan purred, before pulling back Phil’s duvet and sliding in beside him.

 

“Phil, I’m coming in,” said Elinor at last, and Phil’s door started swinging open just as he managed to flick the covers over the stupid demon’s lower half.

 

“Sorry to burst in like this, Phil, but I heard— Oh my god,” came Elinor’s voice, and Phil looked up to see her stood in the doorway, doorknob in hand and face a mask of shock.

 

“Whoa-ho!” Michael’s eyes appeared over her shoulder. “I could’ve sworn you were lying, but here you’ve gone and actually brought someone home. Well done, Philip! Oi! Stephen, get in here and see what Phil’s done—“

 

“I’m so sorry,” Elinor whispered, and then, despite Michael’s loud protests, quickly pulled Phil’s door shut again.

 

Some sort of muffled argument continued out in the corridor after that, but inside Phil’s bedroom there was stark silence as he slowly turned to take in the man in bed beside him. Dan had flopped down on his side and appeared to have made himself quite comfortable on Phil’s pillows.

 

“What are you doing here?” Phil hissed, keeping his voice low since the others were still just outside his door.

 

The fox demon raised a hand to his chest in a gesture of offended pride.

 

“Why, you did me a great favor yesterday evening. We foxes always pay our debts,” he stated, as though this were the most commonplace of knowledge.

 

Phil didn’t even try to hide his grimace.

 

“I don’t need any payment from you, thank you very much,” he said. “As long as you promise never to dine on any of my vital organs, I think we can just call it even.”

 

That made Dan sit up straighter, the mischievous gleam back in his eye, and before Phil had a chance to back away, the demon was leaning in close to his ear and murmuring,

 

“Don’t worry. It’s not your liver I’d like to taste anymore.”

 

Phil had no idea why that should make him blush, unless it was simply the fact that there was an attractive man lying in bed half-naked beside him and whispering in his ear. Phil gave himself a little shake to try to banish the thought of it.

 

“Look, you,” he muttered, glancing toward the door again. “No one is going to be tasting anything. You are going to put some clothes on and then you are going to leave and go back to your own home.”

 

As he uttered this last, though, he made the mistake of looking directly at the demon. As he watched, Dan’s playful twinkle changed to a sad, longing look. His eyes dropped down to stare at the duvet, and he emitted the most pitiful sigh Phil thought he’d ever heard.

 

“I would, but I don’t have a home. That’s why I followed you here.” He glanced up, gaze meeting Phil’s for just a moment before falling back down again. “I was hoping you would let me stay with you.”

 

Phil knew it was a trick. He _knew_ it was just a trick, but there were tiny little tears glistening at the corners of the demon’s eyes, and his lips were trembling with the effort of holding in a sob, and why was Phil such a sucker for sad, pretty boys?

 

“Well, maybe I could take you down to the butcher’s shop and show you how to buy your own food—“ he muttered, but before he could even complete the thought, the demon had pounced. Phil found himself lying flat on his back on the bed with the demon crouched over him peppering his face with tiny kisses. All at once his heart was pounding like to beat right out of his chest.

 

“Thank you thank you thank you,” Dan was chanting as he sloppily pressed his lips to every inch of skin on Phil’s face. At long last, he sat back on Phil’s lap and regarded him with a face beaming with joy. “I promise I’ll be a loyal companion. I shall bring prosperity to your home. And I will grant you anything your heart desires. Do you want me to transform into a beautiful young woman and bear you strong and clever sons?”

 

All Phil could do was stare up at the demon and shake his head from side to side.

 

“Um, I’m good, thanks.”

 

“Then do you have any wealthy neighbors?” Dan suggested reaching up to stroke his chin as he considered. “I could see to it that all of their valuable possessions mysteriously started to appear in your home instead.” He raised his fingers and waggled them to emphasize the “mysteriousness” of the planned transfer.

 

Phil narrowed his eyes.

 

“You mean you’d steal their stuff and bring it here?”

 

The demon rolled his eyes.

 

“Well, you don’t have to put it so crassly, but yes… I could do that.”

 

“Please don’t,” Phil said, already regretting agreeing to help out this ridiculous supernatural creature.

 

“Very well, then,” Dan said, “at the least, I can offer to protect your home from evil spirits.”

 

“Why don’t you start by offering to put on some pants?” Phil suggested, as he was having a very difficult time keeping his eyes fixed on the demon’s much less distracting upper half. “What happened to the clothes you were wearing last night?”

 

“Oh, those were just an illusion,” Dan shrugged, leaning forward until his eyes filled almost all of Phil’s field of vision. “But I thought you said that if I looked like this I could seduce you…”

 

Phil gulped. He had said something more or less to that effect, but it wasn’t like he had actually meant it. Phil was certainly not so hard up for sex that he was about to make it with a sexagenarian fox demon, no matter how pretty his eyes were or how adorable his smile or how fluttery he was making Phil’s stomach feel at the moment—

 

“Ahem,” Phil cleared his throat loudly, and Dan jumped back, startled at the sudden loud noise. “Let’s just get a few things straight, okay? I have _not_ said that you can stay in my house, just that I’ll take you to the butcher shop. And,” he continued over the start of a protest from Dan, “as long as you remain in my company, there will be no seduction, theft, murder, evil spirits, childbearing, or anything, okay? We’re going to the shops together, and that’s it. Got it?”

 

The demon sat back with a sigh, eyes downcast.

 

“Okay,” he murmured in a soft, sad voice, but Phil was wise to his ways.

 

“Can you get off me now and, ah, find something to wear, please?” he asked, motioning Dan off the bed with a couple of jerks of his head.

 

Dan let out another pitiful sigh, but he climbed off the bed — and Phil didn’t quite avert his eyes quickly enough to miss a glimpse of a very nicely shaped derriere — and there was another flash of white light. When Phil dared to look back at him again, he was dressed in jeans, a shirt and a hoodie that looked rather suspiciously similar to clothes Phil owned.

 

“Are those mine?” Phil asked, shoving his duvet off and climbing out of bed himself.

 

“Yes,” the demon said, and then with a grin added, “Why? I could change into something fancier. A silken gown perhaps? A tuxedo?”

 

“My clothes are fine,” Phil hastened to assure him. “Now go wait out in the lounge while I get dressed.”

 

Phil had thought Dan would argue with that, too, but instead he just gave a little shrug and then tripped out the door and down the corridor. Why did his easy compliance make Phil feel even more suspicious? Quickly, he changed out of his pajamas and into an outfit very similar to Dan’s and then hurried out into the lounge.

 

There he found Dan sat on the sofa with his three housemates, who were all regarding him with varying levels of astonishment. Five minutes. It had been _five minutes_ tops.

 

“Dan, uh, why don’t you wait outside,” Phil called. At the sound of his voice, four pairs of eyes turned toward him, three full of astonishment and the fourth full of nothing but simple self-satisfaction. “I need to take care of some…business.”

 

“Okay!” Dan replied, hopping to his feet and giving Phil’s housemates a little wave good-bye. As he passed Phil, he shot him a cheeky look from the corner of his eye, and Phil didn’t know whether he wanted to kiss him or wring his neck. When they’d all heard the front door open and close behind him, Phil’s housemates rushed up to him at once.

 

“Phil, he said you’re taking him to a butcher’s shop?” Stephen whispered loudly, as though he thought Dan might still be able to hear. “To buy liver?”

 

“He’s, um, anemic,” Phil improvised. “He needs lots of iron in his diet.”

 

“He said he could ‘ward off evil spirits’ from our house,” Elinor added. “What the fuck did he mean by that?”

 

“Uh…” Phil said.

 

“He is _well_ hot, Phil. I’m impressed,” Michael said, raising a hand for Phil to high five. Phil eyed the hand with misgiving and then after a moment’s hesitation tapped his palm against it for the briefest of seconds.

 

“He seems like a loony, if you ask me,” Stephen opined, crossing his arms across his chest.

 

“Don’t worry,” Phil said, backing away toward the door. “I don’t think I’ll be seeing much of him after this.”

 

Outside, he found Dan on the far side of their front garden examining the neighbor’s house with a narrow-eyed gaze.

 

“They’re just poor university students like us, Dan,” Phil muttered as he took the demon by the arm and started steering him out toward the street. “I doubt they have anything worth taking.”

 

“I was only looking,” Dan protested, raising his nose in the air and shaking Phil’s hand off his arm.

 

“Let’s just go,” Phil said.

 

The shops actually weren’t that far from where Phil lived, so they walked instead of taking a bus. The day was chillingly cold, with a blank grey sky overhead and the occasional gust of wind to throw old, brown leaves into their faces. Phil was startled when, just a block or so from the shops, he felt Dan huddling into his side.

 

“It’s sooo cold,” he whined. “Why don’t you humans grow nice fur coats to keep you warm?”

 

“Why don’t you just turn back into a fox then?” Phil countered. He’d been about to push Dan off him, but he was realizing that it was actually rather pleasant having another warm body pressed against him on a day like this. He could let him stay there for a bit…just for the warmth, of course.

 

“I doubt they’d let a fox into a butcher shop,” Dan pointed out, and Phil couldn’t argue with that. It may actually have been the first reasonable thing he’d ever heard the demon say.

 

Once they were in the shop, Dan let go of him finally and hurried straight up to the counter, eyes staring with wonder at the variety of meats on display. As Phil came up behind him, the demon turned a shining, toothy smile on him.

 

“It’s just like you said,” he breathed. “How much can we buy? Can we buy a whole cow?”

 

“Can I help you?” said the man behind the counter, looking them up and down with an expression that said he wasn’t particularly happy to see them.

 

“Ah, yes,” Phil said, “we’d like some liver—“

 

“And a heart!” Dan chimed in, hands clasped together.

 

“And, uh, and a heart, if you have any.”

 

The man behind the counter looked back and forth between them for a moment, eyebrows raised, but he made no comment as he started to put together their package. Phil had seen the listed prices for the items they were buying, and he thought he might be about to cry. There went his spending money for all of November… Why was he doing this again?

 

When they’d paid and Dan had taken hold of the brown paper-wrapped package as though it were a delicate treasure, they made their way back out onto the pavement. That’s where Phil stopped and decided it was time to put his foot down.

 

“Look, I’m very sorry that you are having a difficult time getting used to England, but I really can’t afford to keep buying you food all the time,” he began. “You’re going to have to take care of yourself from now on. Got it?”

 

Dan was standing there hugging the package to the front of his hoodie and regarding Phil with wide eyes. He gave a little nod, gaze dropping to the pavement.

 

“Okay, well, good luck,” Phil said, willing himself not to feel sorry for the desolate-looking creature. “I doubt we’ll be seeing each other again.”

 

The wind picked up a bit then, ruffling Dan’s thick brown hair as he nodded once more.

 

“Thanks for everything,” he mumbled. “Good luck to you, too.”

 

“Thanks,” Phil returned and then, ripping his eyes away from the demon’s hunched shoulders and down-turned lips, he spun around and headed back home.

 

He was doing the right thing. He was sure of it. He simply didn’t have the budget to support both himself and a ravenous fox demon, especially one who seemed very likely to get into all sorts of costly mischief. Even as he thought this, though, he remembered the feeling of Dan’s body huddled against side, how warm it had felt in contrast to how cold he felt now. He told his brain to shut it, but it instead started reminding him of how his stomach had clenched and his heart had fluttered when Dan had climbed on top of him and given him all those kisses this morning.

 

“No, no, no, I am _not_ attracted to a _demon_ ,” he told himself very sternly as he strode up the front path of his house and pushed the front door open.

 

“Phil! You’re finally back!” came Stephen’s voice from the lounge. “Come here and see what we’ve found.”

 

Phil shut the door and leaned against it for just a moment. Surely not. _Surely—_

 

He walked into the lounge, and there were all three of his housemates crowded around a large red fox, who was happily receiving their coos and caresses. Phil sighed.

 

“He was sitting right in our back garden,” Michael was saying as he patted the fox on the head. The fox had its eyes closed as though it were very much enjoying the attention.

 

“You should’ve seen his face,” Elinor put in. She was crouched down next the fox and was running her palm down the wiry fur of its back. “He had the biggest, saddest eyes.”

 

“I’ll bet he did,” Phil half-growled.

 

The fox opened its eyes then and turned to look at Phil, cocking its head to one side with an expression of innocent inquiry.

 

“I think I heard that foxes can give you Lyme Disease.” Phil raised his voice to make sure that they could all hear him quite clearly. “You’re not supposed to keep them as pets.”

 

The fox stood up then and walked right up to Phil. It stood up on its two hind legs and placed its front paws against Phil’s knees. Its bushy tail started swishing back and forth, and its eyes were staring straight into Phil’s.

 

“We can take him to a vet and make sure he’s safe,” Elinor was saying.

 

“He seems very friendly. I bet he was raised around humans,” Stephen added.

 

“I think he likes you,” Michael chimed in.

 

Phil looked down into a pair of bright brown eyes. The fox’s mouth opened and its tongue lolled out in a grin. It was laughing at him. He _knew_ it was laughing at him.

 

“Fine!” he gave in at last. “But he is _not_ my responsibility!”

 

**

 

The fox slept at the foot of Phil’s bed that night and every night for a long time afterward. And it wasn’t too long before Phil started waking up to find, not a furry fox at his feet, but an attractive young man snuggled into his side, and really, he didn’t mind so much after all…

 

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on tumblr. Written for phanchilada on tumblr.


End file.
